Our great teacher, great leader, great supreme commander
and great helmsman Chairman Mao with Comrade Lin Piao,
his close comrade-in-arms, on the Tien An Men rostrum

Chairman Mao Reviews a Mammoth March-Past
of One and a Half Million Paraders

— In the High Tide of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution the People’s
Republic of China Joyously Celebrates the 17th Anniversary of Its Founding

[This article is reprinted from Peking Review, Vol. 9, #41, Oct. 7,
1966, pp. 3-7. Thanks are due to the WWW.WENGEWANG.ORG
web site for some of the work done for this posting.]

ONE and a half million revolutionary people from the capital
and from all parts of our great motherland gathered on October 1, 1966, in Peking’s Tien An Men
Square for an unprecedentedly big mass rally and parade to mark the 17th anniversary of the
founding of the People’s Republic of China. This took place in the new high tide of the
unparalleled, great proletarian cultural revolution of our country and at a time when there was
an excellent revolutionary situation at home and abroad.

Our great teacher, great leader, great supreme commander
and great helmsman Chairman Mao, his close comrade-in-arms Comrade Lin Piao, and other leaders
of the Party and Government attended this festive occasion and reviewed the mass parade. For
more than six hours starting from the morning and continuing into the afternoon, Chairman Mao
and Comrade Lin Piao, both in excellent health and full of vigour, were with the crowds all the
time. When the parade ended, Chairman Mao came down from the rostrum and walked across Chinshui
Bridge and into the thick crowds. He warmly greeted them all. The crowds, waving their
dazzling red copies of Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung, cheered and jumped with
joy. Times without number they shouted “Long live Chairman Mao! Long live, long live Chairman
Mao!” Overjoyed, many gave free rein to their exultation: “We are happy beyond words!
Chairman Mao and Comrade Lin Piao are in such good health. They have such great energy. This is
great happiness for the people of China and the whole world!”

When the morning sun shed its shimmering rays over the city,
throngs extending over dozens of li had already been converging on Tien An Men Square
and the boulevard east of it. Basking in the early sunshine, the crowds recited quotations from
Chairman Mao’s works and read the paean dedicated to him: The red sun rises before us. Its
splendour reddens the great earth. Our great leader, beloved Chairman Mao, may you be with us
for ever.

The happiest of moments has come! The Square was astir, the
military band struck up The East Is Red and then came Chairman Mao and his close
comrade-in-arms Comrade Lin Piao, together with other leaders of the Party and state: Liu
Shao-chi, Soong Ching Ling, Tung Pi-wu, Chou En-lai, Tao Chu, Chen Po-ta, Teng Hsiao-ping,
Kang Sheng, Chu Teh, Li Fu-chun, Chen Yun, Chen Yi, Liu Po-cheng, Ho Lung, Li Hsien-nien, Tan
Chen-lin, Hsu Hsiang-chien, Nieh Jung-chen, Yeh Chien-ying, Ulanfu, Li Hsueh-feng, Hsieh
Fu-chih, Liu Ning-I, Hsiao Hua, Yang Cheng-wu and Chiang Ching. They mounted the Tien An Men
rostrum.

Red balloons which trailed big streamers with slogans slowly
floated in the red sunshine and hovered above the Red Guards and Young Pioneers massed in the
Square. Then big characters “Long live Chairman Mao!” formed by bouquets of flowers in the
hands of more than a hundred thousand people appeared on the south side of the Square. The
Square glowed with thousands upon thousands of hands waving their Quotations From Chairman
Mao Tse-tung. The people thronged Tien An Men Square, which is 400,000 square metres in
area, as well as the wide street east of it and the Square became a roaring ocean of red. The
shouting of slogans mingling with cheers sounded like spring thunders, unceasing and
deafening.

At this moment many jotted down these words in the fly-leaf
of their Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung to commemorate this moment of great joy:
10 a.m. exactly, October 1, 1966.

The advance guard at the head of the parade marches past Tien An
Men Square with a huge statue of Chairman Mao in military uniform

Some 3,000 representatives of the workers, peasants and
soldiers and of the national minorities and the Red Guards who came from all corners of the
country went up in groups to the Tien An Men rostrum to stand beside Chairman Mao and
participate in the festivities. They have each in their own field performed heroic feats and
they were jubilant to be at the side of Chairman Mao. These heroes and heroines and the
Red Guards excitedly said: By receiving us on the Tien An Men rostrum Chairman Mao is showing
us the greatest solicitude and encouragement. We must see that Mao Tse-tung’s thought take
still firmer root in us. We must always work for the revolution and remain loyal from
generation to generation.

Friends from more than 70 countries and regions of the
five continents who were here to take part in the National Day celebrations brought with
them the friendship for the Chinese people extended by the anti-imperialist revolutionary
fighters and the people the world over. With copies of the Quotations From Chairman
Mao Tse-tung in hand and speaking different languages, they joined with the revolutionary
masses of our country in wishing Chairman Mao a very, very long life.

At 10:05, Comrade Wu Teh, Acting Mayor of Peking, declared
the celebration rally open. The army band struck up the national anthem and 28 salvoes were
fired. A huge national emblem was formed of bouquets held by more than 100,000 of the
revolutionary masses in the centre of the Square before the Monument to the Peoples Heroes.
Flanking the emblem were the huge figures “1949” and “1966” signifying the historical
progress.

Then Comrade Lin Piao began his speech amid stormy applause
from the entire rally. (For full text see page 10.)

Comrade Lin Piao’s speech was punctuated time and again
with plaudits and cheers from the 1,500,000 revolutionary masses who shouted revolutionary
slogans — a manifestation of their resolute response to the fighting call to the people of
the whole country made by Comrade Lin Piao on behalf of Chairman Mao and the Party’s Central
Committee.

Respectively representing the workers, peasants, the
People’s Liberation Army, revolutionary teachers and students, and national minorities of
the whole country, Wang Yu-fa, a worker of the heroic No. 32111 Oil Drilling Team; Chen
Yung-kang, national model agricultural worker; Kuo Hsiao-szu, Deputy Company Leader of a
unit of the Chinese People’s Liberation Army under the Peking command; Nieh Meng-min,
Vice-Chairman of the Cultural Revolutionary Committee of Peking University; and Pazang, an
emancipated Tibetan serf, came to the side of Chairman Mao one after another and spoke at
the rally. (For full texts see pages 18-21.) Their speeches gave expression to the common
revolutionary will of the hundreds of millions of the workers, peasants and soldiers and
the revolutionary masses of all nationalities in the entire country and were greeted with
continuous and stormy applause from the rally.

Then, Ta Thi Kieu, combat heroine of south Vietnam; E.F.
Hill, Chairman of the Australian Communist Party (Marxist-Leninist); da Cruz, fighter of
the Angolan National Liberation Movement; Hisao Kuroda, Vice-Chairman of the Japan-China
Friendship Association; and Robert Williams, noted American Negro leader, were warmly
welcomed by the 1.5 million revolutionary masses when they made speeches which were full
of revolutionary friendship for the Chinese people. (For full texts see pages 22-25.)

At 11:15 the mass parade started to the strains of
Sailing the Seas Depends on the Helmsman. Waving copies of Quotations From
Chairman Mao Tse-tung, loudly singing revolutionary songs and shouting revolutionary
slogans, the 1,500,000 revolutionary masses of various nationalities marched past Tien An
Men Square in high spirits to be reviewed by the great leader Chairman Mao. High in the
centre of the red wall of the magnificent Tien An Men Gate hung a huge portrait of
Chairman Mao. In front of the green pines and cypresses on the east and west sides of the
Square stood the portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin and Stalin. Before the Monument to the
People’s Heroes in the south side of the Square was erected the portrait of Dr. Sun
Yat-sen. Red stars on the tops of the tall slogan pylons on the right and left sides of
the reviewing stands were a symbol that Mao Tse-tung’s thought casts its illuminating
rays everywhere.

At the head of the whole contingent of marchers was a
huge statue of Chairman Mao. He was clad in military uniform, with a huge hand stretching
forward and pointing the way of our victorious advance.

Gallant and majestic, the advance guard composed of
more than 20,000 P.L.A. men, militiamen and Red Guards marched in the van of the
contingent of mass paraders. The valiant and high-spirited P.L.A. men who guarded the
national flag and national emblem carried with them sub-machine guns, and every one held
aloft the red-covered Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung. Marching with firm
steps they kept on shouting in a rhythm: “Long live Chairman Mao!” and “Long live the
Chinese Communist Party!” The Chinese People’s Liberation Army created by Chairman Mao
himself is for ever loyal to Chairman Mao, to Mao Tse-tung’s thought, to the Party and
to the people. Close behind the P.L.A. were the militiamen and the Red Guards who
provide a powerful backing for the P.L.A. The armed militiamen who never forget Chairman
Mao’s earnest teachings concerning the formation of militia divisions in a big way
entered Tien An Men Square with their heads raised up and in giant steps and there they
received the review by Chairman Mao, the great leader. The Red Guards, the brave young
fighters, who are the shock brigade in the great proletarian cultural revolution, were
exceedingly elated and overjoyed, carrying with them a huge oil painting “Chairman Mao
with the Red Guards.” On and below the Tien An Men rostrum, all acclaimed the
all-powerful and all-conquering iron current of the people. People remarked that if the
U.S. imperialists and their accomplices dared to impose a war on the Chinese people,
they would certainly be drowned in the vast sea of people’s war.

The big parade of workers, peasants, revolutionary
intellectuals, revolutionary cadres, and revolutionary teachers and students of Peking
and from other parts of the country, marched 140 abreast. The procession was dozens of
kilometres long and merged into a great revolutionary current with the columns marching
mightily forward. When the contingent of the workers and peasants came before Tien An
Men, people cheered the news of the excellent situation on the industrial and
agricultural fronts throughout the country and warmly clapped to salute the masses of
workers and peasants who have made tremendous contributions to the work of socialist
revolution and construction.

Contingents of Red Guards and revolutionary
teachers and students from all parts of the country formed a cultural revolutionary
army which made up the greatest part of those who participated in our capital’s
National Day parade. They marched shoulder to shoulder with Peking’s workers,
revolutionary teachers and students and revolutionary cadres. In this army, there were
sons and daughters of emancipated serfs from the Tibetan plateau, revolutionary
youngsters from Chairman Mao’s native village, and revolutionary sons and daughters
from Yenan, Chingkang Mountains, Tsun-yi, and other revered revolutionary places in
China. Entrusted by hundreds of millions of the revolutionary youth throughout the
country, they came to march in review before the great leader Chairman Mao, and to
pledge to him their resolute determination to carry the great proletarian cultural
revolution through to the end.

When all the contingents of paraders had marched
past Tien An Men Square, the more than 100,000 Young Pioneers, Red Guards,
revolutionary teachers and students, workers and cadres, who had filled up the open
space on the south side of the Square, jubilantly surged towards Tien An Men. They
waved garlands, bouquets, and Quotations From Chairman Mao Tse-tung to cheer
Chairman Mao with all their hearts. The Square resounded with fireworks; countless
numbers of red balloons flew skyward. Then, friends from more than 70 countries and
regions of the world, representatives of the workers, peasants, soldiers and all the
fraternal nationalities, overseas Chinese and compatriots from Hongkong and Macao,
who filled the 16 reviewing stands alongside Chinshui Bridge, shouted in one voice
“Long live Chairman Mao!” Chairman Mao and his close comrade-in-arms Comrade Lin
Piao and other Party and state leaders waved to the cheering crowd; frequently. On
the Tien An Men rostrum and below, great jubilation reigned supreme, fully
expressing the great unity of the Chinese people and the people of the whole
world.

Reviewing the parade on the rostrum were noted
revolutionary fighters against imperialism from the five continents, and other
foreign friends. They included: Sheikh Mukhtar Mohamed Hussein, head of the Somali
parliamentary friendship delegation and President of the Somali National Assembly;
Abdul Monem Khan, head of the Pakistan friendship delegation; S.J. Kitundu, head
of the Tanzanian friendship delegation; Nagalingam Sanmugathasan, Member of the
Political Bureau and of the Secretariat of the Central Committee of the Communist
Party of Ceylon; Nguyen Minh Phuong, Acting Head of the Permanent Mission in China
of the South Vietnam National Front for Liberation; Jusuf Adjitorop. Member of the
Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Indonesian Communist Party; Rathe
Deshapriya Senanayake, Secretary-General of the Afro-Asian Writers’ Bureau, and his
wife; Djawoto, Secretary-General of the Afro-Asian Journalists’ Association, and
his wife; Leng Ngeth, head of the delegation of the Cambodia-China Friendship
Association; Claude Antoine Da Costa, head of the government economic delegation
of Congo (Brazzaville); Ahmed Mohammed Kheir, Sudanese peace champion; Aubert
Lounda, Member of the Political Bureau of the National Revolutionary Movement of
Congo (Brazzaville); and Zenel Hamiti, head of the Albanian petroleum
delegation.